Apple MacBook support?

D

dndlnx

Considered dual-booting Mac OS and FreeBSD rather than a virtual machine, if possible. Hardware is a late 2013 MacBook Pro “Retina”.

When booted into FreeBSD, should I expect some stuff not to work? How compatible is it with Apple hardware?
 
I installed FreeBSD (10.4-RELEASE, 11.2-RELEASE) on a 2012 Non-retina Macbook Pro, and it didn't support the wireless card (BCM4331). I would check to see if the card in your laptop is supported or not. If not, you will have to either replace it (if its possible) or dedicate one of your USB ports to a wifi dongle (that is supported).
 
That would be a bummer since it’s kind of a crucial requirement for a laptop. I guess there’s always buying a cheap one like an older ThinkPad.

I just wanted some place to run FreeBSD when my file server is down, so I can access my UFS formatted backup. Maybe I should be looking into a way to read UFS from a Mac? Or even switching the format of my backup?
 
dndlnx said:
That would be a bummer since it’s kind of a crucial requirement for a laptop. I guess there’s always buying a cheap one like an older ThinkPad.

I just wanted some place to run FreeBSD when my file server is down, so I can access my UFS formatted backup. Maybe I should be looking into a way to read UFS from a Mac? Or even switching the format of my backup?
Click to expand...

Agreed. It definitely stinks to not have wifi on a laptop. I have sadly had to resort to an alternative OS on that laptop. The thinkpads come highly recommended from what I've read. I did some googling (apple) and found a post that mentioned Mac OSX using big endian UFS (UFS2). According to the wikipedia, UFS support was dropped completely since Mac OSX Lion. Regardless, I would try to see if you can mount a UFS formatted flash drive on your Mac, and if it does, then your hard drive should work as well.
 
I came across “OSXFUSE” but who knows how reliable that is? It supposedly works for UFS. I have actually plugged a UFS thumb drive I keep around, into my laptop. The Mac OS said unrecognized format, or something to that effect. And yeah, I’m way past Lion at this point.
 
alexseitsinger said:
I installed FreeBSD (10.4-RELEASE, 11.2-RELEASE) on a 2012 Non-retina Macbook Pro, and it didn't support the wireless card (BCM4331)
Click to expand...

Is this simply an issue with no driver support, or is this some sort of result of how locked down their devices are? If one were to develop drivers for the chipset; would it be feasible to use it?

Other than the Thinkpad lineup, I do like the keyboard layout and feel of the 2nd and 3rd Gen MacBook Pro. It'd be nice to turn my MacBook into a BeastieBook. :)

(corny.. i know. Don't judge me)
 
Beastie7 said:
Is this simply an issue with no driver support, or is this some sort of result of how locked down their devices are? If one were to develop drivers for the chipset; would it be feasible to use it?

Other than the Thinkpad lineup, I do like the keyboard layout and feel of the 2nd and 3rd Gen MacBook Pro. It'd be nice to turn my MacBook into a BeastieBook. :)

(corny.. i know. Don't judge me)
Click to expand...

It's a driver support issue. The wireless card works fine in linux (though it only works on 2.5GHz and lacks 5GHz support). I agree, the chicklet keyboard is solid. BeastieBook sounds like a good name :).
 
This is my wireless card:
Code: 
  Card Type:    AirPort Extreme  (0x14E4, 0x112)
  Firmware Version:    Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (7.77.37.31.1a9)

Wish it was more specific on the "xx", but since bwi(4) and bwn(4) don't mention anything beyond "g" wireless anyway... probably a no go?
 
pciconf -lv should provide you with more specificity like:

Code: 
none6@pci0:3:0:0: class=0x028000 card=0x0090106b chip=0x432814e4 rev=0x05 hdr=0x00
    vendor     = 'Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries'
    device     = 'BCM4321 802.11a/b/g/n'
    class      = network
 
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